Industrial processing facilities for food, paper, drug and other manufacturing, processing and packaging are becoming larger and more concentrated. Consequently, the waste streams produced by these facilities are becoming increasingly larger, more concentrated locally and more difficult and costly to dispose of due to government regulations as well as decreasing numbers and sizes of landfill sites that are available for waste disposal. More people are consuming commercially prepared and processed food both in and out of the home than ever before. This is true not only in the United States, but in other countries as well. This phenomenon creates an enormous amount of waste, i.e., food scraps, over-ripe food, trimmings, spoilage and animal parts discarded during food preparation, that is concentrated in large processing facilities and that must be disposed of in municipal sewage, landfills or incinerators. The waste is produced in larger and larger amounts in facilities that produce pre-prepared food products, such as frozen foods, pre-prepared, ready-to-eat salad mixes, heat-and-serve meals, and the like for home, institutional, airline, hotel and other uses. This waste is frequently difficult and costly to dispose of, primarily because it commonly has high water content and has little economic value as a fuel. The art is replete with various complex processes and systems that address the problems of such waste disposal and/or conversion to useful, recyclable or disposable products. However, most prior processes and systems are not practical or desirable due to economic considerations, due to the limited type of waste that can be treated or processed in a particular system, due to environmental problems caused by operation of the processes or system or due to other disadvantages. Moreover, the eruption of transmittable spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), particularly bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and scrapie diseases, has made inactivation of pathogenic agents essential, whether the waste material is processed for recycle or for disposal. Animal wastes, such as offal, paunch waste material and carcasses, are subject to carrying infectious agents including fungi, bacteria, viruses and prions associated with BSE, TSE, etc. The prior art processes available are either not satisfactorily effective from a technical standpoint or are not economically desirable. A need therefore exists for methods of processing and/or disposal of food processing, slaughter house, and similar wastes without the technical or economic disadvantages of the prior art.
Examples of the prior art publications that have addressed the above problems by digestion, incineration, volume reduction and/or decomposition include U.S. Pat. No. 5,685,153 to Dickinson et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,197,081 to Schmidt; U.S. Pat. No. 6,506,311 to DeGarmo et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,534,105 to Kartchner; U.S. Pat. No. 6,638,757 to Teran et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,716,360 to Titmas; U.S. Patent Applications 2002/0122850 by Kartchner, 2003/0098227 by Okamoto et al. and 2004/0055716 by Landalv et al., the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Another problem existing in waste treatment and disposal operations is air pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and CO2, and emission of gases having noxious odors, such as slaughterhouse and rendering plant operations. As residential housing areas have expanded, many have encroached on land adjacent to various food processing and other industrial operations, and complaints from residents regarding the noxious odors escalate. The prior art has offered little to satisfactorily and economically address the problems of controlling and preventing noxious odors from industrial manufacturing facilities and waste disposal facilities.
There is also a general problem of removal of water from high water content, dilute process streams, whether it is a waste stream, final product stream or an intermediate process stream. The removal of water from process streams having a high water content is costly, energy intensive and time consuming.
It is apparent from the above that there is a substantial unmet need for environmentally and economically acceptable technologies for disposal of various waste materials, for control of noxious and greenhouse gases, for conversion of wastes into useful or recyclable products and for efficient and economical removal of water from high water content process streams. The present invention is directed to methods, apparatus, systems and products for meeting some or all of these needs.